Aaron put his arms over his face, bent to protect his gut, kept the stone at his back, and endured blow after blow.
Carter’s vengeful fury raged on.
Damn it, I’m going to have to—
Except that he’d waited too late. His face ran with blood, his eyes were swelling shut, his ribs lanced pain with every inhalation. His belly couldn’t take another blow, but he couldn’t straighten his body enough to turn—
Then came a shout and Carter disappeared, yanked backward into the darkness by a muscled arm.
Chapter Twenty
A few shouted words and the sound of blows penetrated Aaron’s hazed consciousness as he slumped against the stone balustrade of the terrace. With his tormenter otherwise occupied, he took the opportunity to fall half over the railing and retch gratefully into the garden below.
“God, man! What the hell were you thinking? Why didn’t you fight back?”
Aaron inhaled, wiping the back of his hand over his bleeding mouth. Then he blinked up at his rescuer. Dade Worthington. God, why couldn’t it have been Lysander? The younger Worthington wouldn’t ask questions!
Dade grabbed Aaron by the shoulders and propped him upright, leaning against the balustrade. Aaron tried not to flinch at Dade’s grip on his bruised body. I am going to be a map of the world—blue and green, with a few rivers of red.
Dade wasn’t being any too gentle, and it didn’t take Aaron long to discover why.
“Lord Aaron Arbogast, is it? Black Aaron?”
Well. It was done. Just as he must have known, deep down, even as he dressed for the evening. Too cowardly to tell her yourself? Let her find out in the worst possible way! Wonderful solution, you bastard!
“You bastard!”
Oh, good. It was unanimous.
Dade’s fury didn’t run as hot as Carter’s, it seemed. Aaron lifted his head to meet the cold, deadly serious gaze of the only serious Worthington he’d ever encountered. Hellfire. I might actually die tonight, after all.
“Worthington—” Aaron coughed. It hurt, but it didn’t feel like any ribs were broken. Yet. “God, before you kill me, can you please—” His breath caught again. “If you will fetch me a whiskey … or three?”
The dying man’s last request seemed to appeal to Dade. He turned and strode away, then stopped just at the ballroom doors.
“There is nowhere for you to run, your lordship. Nowhere in the world.”
Aaron waved a hand in acquiescence, even as he slid down the stone railing to half sprawl on the stone floor of the terrace. He didn’t—couldn’t—run from this. She deserved better. She deserved to face him, to screech at him, to take one of those very large books and brain him with it.
The sweet music of her voice danced through his mind. I love you, Henry Hastings.
He’d thought himself in pain from the beating. That was nothing.
This was truly going to hurt.
The loving light in her green-blue eyes.
Oh, God. Elektra.
* * *
Aaron wasn’t one to be intimidated by any man, even two or three men … but four large and angry Worthingtons were enough to send shivers up any man’s spine. They loomed—great louts that they were!—over where he sat with his hands bound with rope in Dade’s study chair, thinking he ought to have made out his last will and testament.
Furthermore, he deserved their scorn and fury. He’d entered their home under false pretenses and taken advantage of their generous hospitality. He was only glad they didn’t know how many times he’d kissed their very pretty sister!
He knew Dade was only being a protective brother and Aaron admired him for it. The best he could hope for now would be to throw himself on their mercy and hope to survive it.
Orion, now, he could happily brain … but Elektra wouldn’t like that. He turned his gaze from one implacable face to another. Cas shot him an especially bloodthirsty glare. Only in Lysander’s tightened visage did he see even a glimpse of sympathy. Yes, Lysander knew of something of longing for redemption, or at least for a new beginning.
He took a breath and nodded to them all, one by one. “You have every reason to be angry. I have done the unforgivable in invading your home and lying to you all.”
He cleared his throat and tried again. “I assure you that I only came here to ensure Miss Elektra and Miss Bliss would arrive safely in your hands.”
Dade frowned. “Ellie told me that you assisted them through some difficulty on the road. Now I am wondering if she told me everything. Wasn’t she gunning for some earl?”
Lysander let out a small choked sound, but only Aaron seemed to hear it.
“I … er … came across Miss Elektra stranded near a ruined estate, which she informed me had belonged to you all.”
“Still belongs to us, not that it’s any of your business.” That was Cas. He seemed possibly the most volatile Worthington male, but seemed willing to accede to Dade’s leadership. Aaron wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.
“Er … yes, well, she requested my assistance to return to the guardianship of her brother at a nearby inn. I was only too glad to help a young lady in need. Zander? Is there anything you’d like to add?”
Lysander only stared stonily back at his eldest brother, but Aaron saw the darker man’s fingers twitch at his sides, his entire body tense with unspoken urgency.
“Hmm.” Dade seemed to feel the same helplessness the rest of the family did concerning his war-torn sibling. He turned back to Aaron, a more acceptable target for his frustrated fury. “So Ellie got herself into a pickle and you got her back to the inn.” Dade folded his arms. “Go on.”
Aaron cleared his throat. “Well, Miss Bliss had arrived by then and Mr. Worthington was nowhere to be found…”
Dade scowled. “Yes, I am aware that he left his post. He was alarmed at Ellie’s … er … disappearance.”
It was then that Aaron realized that Dade did not know that he, Aaron, had been Ellie’s intended “pickle” or that Lysander had been in on the kidnapping plot from the beginning.
And Lysander didn’t want Aaron to tell him.
No, of course not. Telling Dade would only inflame him, for upright Dade would only see that Aaron had spent a night sans chaperone with his innocent sister and that would be cause, in the man’s honorable viewpoint, to call Aaron out in a duel.
That would be very, very bad.
Aaron could not kill Elektra’s brother in a duel, and, as much as he admired her, he truly did not want to die at her brother’s hand.
So, the secret would be kept, forever. Even if his life were not in imminent danger of being snuffed out, Aaron would never dishonor Elektra by shaming her before her brother in such a way … well, not that Elektra was at all ashamed of her actions, which were perfectly justifiable, if one were an insane Worthington …
Do stay on topic, old chap. You’re about to die, remember?
Dade straightened. “Perhaps you’re right about the Thames, Cas.”
Aaron leaned forward urgently. “Just … wait!”
Dade actually hesitated, then flushed angrily at himself for doing so. “Wait for you to tell us yet another lie?”
Aaron let his breath out slowly. “I am not lying. I only wished to see her safely home. After that, I only wished to stay to … to understand her a little better…”
“All the better to finagle your way in past her guard!”
Aaron sighed. There was no help for it. “All the better to finagle my way in.” He shrugged. “So I will leave now. Thank you all for your hospitality.”
He rose awkwardly, with his hands tied before him, and took a single step forward, hoping that they would simply part way for him. Such was not to be. The wall of Worthingtons loomed large.
“Black Aaron, known far and wide as the destroyer of young women. You seduced that Masterson girl, dishonoring her so that the poor desperate thing took her own life with an overdose of laudanum. Most honorable men would run you through wit
h a sword, simply for casting shade upon their doorstep.” Dade tilted his head and gazed at him with ice in his eyes. “Now you admit that you are up to your old tricks?”
Old tricks. Oh, hell. Aaron’s heart sank, realizing that as far as the Worthington blokes knew, he was the same fellow who had ruined and abandoned Amelia Masterson all those years ago.
I can’t believe I almost forgot that is who I am. Elektra had made him forget it, damn it. She had treated him like a human being for a brief time and he had begun to believe it himself.
“I’d like an answer to that one, myself.”
At that steel-within-silk voice, Aaron’s head whipped about. A delicate shadow stood in the doorway, just outside the pool of candlelight.
Elektra.
* * *
The study was cool at night without a fire, so Elektra had brought along a voluminous shawl and a candle stub. She curled up on the settee in the library and waited for Henry to join her.
They had a great deal to talk about. The future wouldn’t be an easy one, for either of them. The world was suspicious of things that didn’t fit. As a Worthington, Elektra had been born a misfit, albeit one tolerated by Society. As Mrs. Hastings, she would leave her world behind entirely.
Not her family, she was sure. At least, she’d like to be sure. Mama wouldn’t care. Papa would likely quote Romeo and Juliet until they were all sick to death of it.
Attie wouldn’t care, nor would Callie. Her sisters, she knew, would be at her side forever.
Lysander probably wouldn’t notice. Castor had his own scandals to live down, along with his pregnant Miranda and his missing twin to worry about.
Orion? Elektra was certain that Society’s whims meant less to him than the migratory pattern of starlings in northern Scotland. He would neither approve nor disapprove. Elektra wondered momentarily if she could interest Henry in biology to help win Rion over.
So the one she truly worried about was Dade, was it not?
Thinking about her eldest brother, who also served as a sort of unanimously appointed replacement father, Elektra felt that inner flinch once more.
Dade was not going to approve, for the very same reasons that she’d listed to herself last night after encountering Henry in the hallway and nearly kissing him.
Wedding “beneath her station,” as the world would call it, would deal the family standing another blow, and they’d already had so many.
The loss of the manor, the damage done to Lysander’s mind, Iris’s permanent flight of fancy, the carelessly scandalous antics of Castor and Pollux, even Callie’s shockingly quick marriage to that scarred hermit—who was a nice enough fellow once one got to know him, although Society eyed him askance.
Dade would not see a romantic tale of hearts united over the chasm of class. Dade, she feared, would view it as a betrayal of the family.
He would be right.
Is it so wrong that I long for something of my own?
And then the mantel clock, an ornate ceramic piece that would be valuable were it not hopelessly chipped, chimed two o’clock in the morning.
Startled, Elektra wrapped her shawl more tightly about her. So late?
Where are you, Henry?
Except that she was very much afraid that she knew.
Dade had already found them out.
He and the other lads would take Henry to his study. All serious business took place in Dade’s study. Elektra picked up her skirts and ran.
She skidded to a stop outside the study door to find her parents there, eavesdropping like naughty children. Archie turned his grizzled head to gaze at Elektra in vague worry, while Iris practically swooned in an excess of joy. Mama dearly loved a bit of drama.
Elektra paused to catch her breath. This would require a bit of cajolery. Blast it, how had Dade found out already, when she’d only discovered her own feelings a few hours ago?
Then, as her brother’s angry words penetrated the thick oak door of the study, her breath left her for an entirely different reason. Moving her mother gently aside, she pressed her ear to the door.
What she heard chilled her soul.
* * *
“Now you admit that you are up to your old tricks?”
“I’d like an answer to that one myself.”
Elektra’s voice came from the shadows outside the partially open study door. Even as Aaron’s heart sank as he realized what was about to happen, she entered the room, breaking into the circle of light cast by the single candle.
This time her brothers did give way, stepping aside to allow an lane of entry so Elektra could face her almost-debaucher. Well, actually there was no almost about it.
She strolled through her guard dogs as if she strolled through a garden, with her hands clasped delicately before her and her expression serene. She stopped before him. “Mr.—? Not Hastings, I presume?”
“I am Lord Aaron Arbogast, Miss Worthington.” He bowed. “I am pleased to meet you.”
“How odd, my lord. I could have sworn we had already met.” Her eyes flashed fury at him for a single instant, then her pose of serenity was again complete. “So this tale I hear that you are some dastardly defiler of respectable young ladies … is this true?”
Aaron had truly, truly been hoping she would not ask him that particular question. Yet even if he could break his word and tell her everything, it would not matter to the rest of the world.
And he could not break his word.
“There are many stories about what happened ten years ago,” he said slowly, delaying the inevitable, as he had since he’d first laid eyes upon her in the ruin, not wanting the light of hope to extinguish from her gaze, that gaze that she kept carefully just for him, without letting her brothers see how much she wanted him to deny it.
Or perhaps he was a fool. Again. Perhaps she did not care for him. He was at best a liar and a disgrace. At worst, he was the worst a man could be and not hang for it.
At best, he was someone she ought to never trouble her mind over again, for her own sake.
“There is a great deal of truth in those stories.”
It was the best he could do, for he could not bring himself to lie to her, not ever again.
He watched the ice form in her lovely eyes. Not the ice of anger, for Elektra’s fury ran hot, not cold. No, it was the ice of desolation. It was the cold ache of betrayal. Damn it, he had done it again.
Then she shrugged and dropped her hands to her sides, looking anything but desolated. In fact, she looked the picture of barely impolite boredom. “Well, that was rather rude of you to come to stay in our house, now, wasn’t it, what with two respectable young ladies in residence.” She turned to Dade. “We didn’t tell anyone he was visiting us, did we?”
Dade blinked. “Well, no, now that I think on it. He arrived in our carriage to the ball tonight, but I don’t think anyone remarked upon it. We often show up with a crowd.”
Elektra sighed. “Dade, we are a crowd.”
Then she shrugged again. “Well, toss him out and let us speak no more of him.”
Dade sputtered. “But he … he made eyes at you, and led us all to think … and he danced with you…”
Elektra rolled her eyes. “Dade, I danced with him to make the Duke of Camberton jealous! I certainly didn’t care a whit for Hastings … er, Lord Aaron! I thought he was a servant, after all!”
Dade could not deny that. Aaron realized that Elektra had just neatly foiled her brothers’ homicidal plans … or at least tried to. Which meant that despite her nonchalant act just now, she truly did care for him. Didn’t it?
Cas stepped forward, rubbing his hands briskly. “You heard her, lads! Zander, wake up the old horses, will you? We’ll need the carriage to do this properly.”
Aaron peered around him, leaning hard to one side, trying to catch one last glimpse of Elektra. Did she care? Could she care for Lord Aaron the way she had for Henry Hastings?
Does she love me still?
Then Cas’s words san
k in and he gazed warily at the brothers crowding ’round.
I may not live long enough to find out.
Chapter Twenty-one
Elektra moved numbly through the house, avoiding obstacles through long practice despite the roaring in her ears and the dull hollow thudding of her heart. At last, she reached the sanctuary of her own bedchamber, but it was an empty haven. A girl’s room, festooned with the dreams of girlhood. There was no room for the brokenhearted here.
Her gaze flinched from the site of butterfly-blue ribbons still pooled upon her dressing table. She turned her back on it all—the lace, the ribbons, the silly novels she had studied to learn the art of love. Only the fire-blackened hearth did not make her twitch away.
Bliss found her sitting primly in the chair by the cold fire, her hands neatly folded in her lap and her spine quite erect.
“Cousin?”
“I’m sorry, Bliss. This is not the time.”
“I see.” Bliss daintily seated herself on the needlepoint footstool before Elektra. “His Grace was looking for you this evening. I believe you quite caught his fancy. I’m not sure that making yourself scarce was precisely the best mode—”
Elektra put her hands over her face, and tried to remember how to breathe normally. “Bliss, I don’t give a petite pony’s tail about the best mode.”
“Language, cousin!”
Elektra giggled, a hysterical torn laugh that threatened to become a sob.
“Well, if you aren’t upset about His Grace, then your distress must concern Mr. Hastings.”
Elektra caught her breath. There was no point in turning her gaze away anymore. “I thought he was the only truly honest man I had ever met. I admired his ability to move through the world without caring what it thought of him. All lies. His name is not Hastings. He is Lord Aaron Arbogast.” Say it all, say the whole thing, out loud. “They call him Black Aaron.”
“Oh, dear.” Bliss was silent for a long moment. “That Lord Aaron.”
Elektra turned disbelieving eyes toward bliss. “You know about Black Aaron?” She threw out her hands in frustration. “How does everyone know about Black Aaron except me?”
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